page_title: Godred Crovan
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Godred Crovan / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: A painting of a proposed statute commemorating Orry the Dane.
context_page_description: Godred Crovan, known in Gaelic as Gofraid Crobán, Gofraid Meránach, and Gofraid Méránach, was a Norse-Gaelic ruler of the kingdoms of Dublin and the Isles. Although his precise parentage has not completely been proven, he was certainly an Uí Ímair dynast, and a descendant of Amlaíb Cúarán, King of Northumbria and Dublin.
  Godred first appears on record in the context of supporting the Norwegian invasion of England in 1066. Following the collapse of this campaign, Godred is recorded to have arrived on Mann, at the court of Gofraid mac Sitriuc, King of the Isles, a likely kinsman of his. During the 1070s, the latter died and was succeeded by his son, Fingal. Within the decade, Godred violently seized the kingship for himself, although the exact circumstances surrounding this takeover are uncertain. By 1091, Godred attained the kingship of Dublin, and thereby secured complete control of the valuable trade routes through the Irish Sea region. Godred's expansion may be further perceptible in the Clyde estuary and Galloway, and may well have forced the English to consolidate control of Cumberland in an effort to secure their western maritime flank.
context_section_description: One of the foremost leaders of the eleventh-century Norse world was Þórfinnr Sigurðarson, Earl of Orkney, a man whose maritime empire, like that of his father before him, stretched from Orkney to the Isles, and perhaps even into Ireland as well. Þórfinnr died in about 1065, and was succeeded by his two sons, Páll and Erlendr. Unfortunately for the brothers, the expansive island empire that their father had forged appears to have quickly disintegrated under their joint rule. Although there is no record of the brothers conducting military operations in the Isles and Ireland, the thirteenth-century Orkneyinga saga states that the peripheral regions of their father's lordship reverted to the control of local leaders. It was into this power vacuum that Godred first emerges into recorded history.
  The ruler of the Isles who appears to have suffered from Þórfinnr's southward expansion was Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Dublin and the Isles. The turn of the mid eleventh century saw the gradual decline of Echmarcach's authority. In 1052, he was driven from Dublin by Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó, King of Leinster. Although there is evidence to suggest that Diarmait reinstated Ímar as King of Dublin, the latter was dead within two years, and at some point Diarmait appears to have placed his own son, Murchad, upon the throne. About a decade after Diarmait's conquest of Dublin, an invasion of Mann by Murchad appears to have resulted in the submission or expulsion of Echmarcach altogether, effectively giving Diarmait control over the Irish Sea region. When Murchad died in 1070, Diarmait assumed control of Dublin and perhaps Mann as well.
  The ruler of Mann in about 1066 was Gofraid mac Sitriuc, King of the Isles, a man who appears to have reigned under Diarmait's overlordship. Like Godred himself, Gofraid mac Sitriuc may have been a descendant of Amlaíb Cúarán. On Diarmait's unexpected death in 1072, Toirdelbach Ua Briain, King of Munster invaded Leinster, and acquired control of Dublin. Within a year of gaining lordship over the Dubliners, Toirdelbach appears to have installed, or at least recognised a certain Gofraid mac Amlaíb meic Ragnaill as their king. In fact, this man appears to have been a close kinsman of Echmarcach, possibly his nephew. As such, Gofraid mac Amlaíb meic Ragnaill seems to have been a member of a Norse-Gaelic kindred possessing close marital links with the Uí Briain. Such links may well explain the remarkable rapidity with which the Uí Briain struck out at Dublin and the Isles after Diarmait's demise. In 1073, for instance, Mann was raided by a certain Sitriuc mac Amlaíb and two grandsons of the Uí Briain founder, Brian Bóruma, High King of Ireland. Whilst there is reason to suspect that Sitriuc was a brother of Gofraid mac Amlaíb meic Ragnaill, the attack itself was almost certainly a continuation of the Uí Briain's conquest of Dublin the year before.
caption: Proposed mid nineteenth-century monument to King Orry, a legendary figure who may be identical to Godred.
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